It was a remarkable feeling, that feeling I had. There I was, posed on the stair like a decorated hero, glaring into the wind and suppressing the urge, when, like a lozenge to the throat, the soothing reached the strep: something that used to blight me was gone. Not only just gone – it had been gone for some time, and the blissful interval between the exit and the realization was as a second youth wasted. It was foolish, really, to let a milestone of such rare quality pass without a jolly drunk or a tray of cookies.

And who was this grisly offender that passed silently in the night? Was it Emmy Award-winning “Frasier”? Was it the California recall election? Was it George magazine, trucker hats, or Greta Van Susteren’s first face? No, no, nothing like. It was merely the passing of that hideous vintage clothing fad.